Free/Cheap

Keep your Pottery Barn Kids table and chairs pristine by finding a place outside your home for your small one’s artistic messes and creative exploration. In the East Bay, we are so lucky to have a few options: The Oakland Museum of Children’s Art (MOCHA) is free for gallery visits and has an awesome Drop-In Art Studio […]

My friend Jeanine once told me there’s lots of fun time to be had with a baby at an outdoor store like REI: you just set up a sweet pad in the display tent with several of the Thermarest mattresses, chirping bird toys, and bright colored water bottles and have a blast. The first […]

I’ve heard about many different families traditions on ringing in the New Year and I want to move that discussion over here so I can revisit it as my children grow older. As a little kid, I remember listening to the annual countdown of the top music of the year and watching Dick Clark drop […]

I hope I’m not the first person to tell you that your baby won’t remember Christmas. Maybe your mom or mother-in-law tried to tell you this but they probably just sounded annoying, right? Save your money and your stress, Mama. This hilarious post on the Ugly Volvo reminds us that all your crawler really wants […]

Friends, nine Christmases into this parenting thing and I have a useful tip to share: You can and your friends can go in on stocking stuffers. Here’s how: Mentally assemble your friends with similar age kids and share this post with a little note saying, “This! I want to do this for Christmas.” Gather up […]

Mike posted an awesome list of indie stores to browse online. I am returning the favor with a suggestion targeted at his demo: crafty dads of preschool-aged kids. (As a marketer, I will say this demographic is probably the least valuable to any company, but it is one that I personally adore.) photo by megret7 […]

If you get on this opportunity within a year of your baby’s birth, you can receive a signed greeting from the President and Mrs. Obama, welcoming your child to the world. (Your baby must already born and be a U.S. citizen.) All you have to do is fill out a short form on the WhiteHouse.gov […]

One of Heather’s clever “homemade” baby food cheats is to open a can of organic pumpkin and feed it to a baby. Adding pumpkin to rice cereal or oatmeal makes a fancy fall breakfast, like something you could order at Starbucks, but without whipped cream. Experiment with cinnamon, nutmeg, and or ginger to help your […]

Thoughtful reader and not-so-rookie mom, Tanyetta, shares this tip for entertaining a gaggle of energetic toddlers: Get a strip of bubble wrap, roll it out in the middle of the floor and watch the kiddos have a ball making their own unique type of fun! Inspired by Tanyetta’s suggestion, I unrolled some large bubble wrap […]

Whoever invented refrigerator magnets must not have minded their children blocking access to the refrigerator. I don’t get this. I like to take the magnets off the fridge. Put them in muffin tins or on a cookie sheet. Lots of fun and much more portable than the fridge. The stuff (you probably have most […]

If your plastic containers are not stored on a bottom shelf, rearrange things to make it easy to give your baby access. Sit on the kitchen floor and let him pull everything out of the shelf and bang it around. If you have a mish mash of containers and are happy with it — yay […]

When Julian was a toddler, entertaining him in the afternoon was best done outside. Inside he was totally crabby from about 3 to 6 pm. I discovered outdoor toys and activities that kept him busy, and was lazy enough to just put them all in the backyard at once so that he could roam from […]